


Age of Majority

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [41]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:13:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “Stop,” Bryce whines. “I’m trying to be thoughtful and you’re making fun of my dick.”





	Age of Majority

Jared absolutely lucks out with the hockey scheduling gods again, because his birthday falls between the first round of the playoffs — a series in which they absolutely _destroy_ Red Deer 4-1 — and the second round, which is yet to be determined, and may well be against Raf. Jared doesn’t know if he wants it to be or not. Like, obviously he wants Raf to move on from the first round, but Raf is _tough_ to play against, and the Hurricanes have made up a lot of ground since the start of the season to become the sort of team that might just pull out an upset at any moment.

And then, right smack in the middle of all that, he turns eighteen. Jared’s honestly too tired to be that excited about it, all the anticipation his body can hold allotted to the playoffs. He’s already thinking to the next round, trying to remember all his games against the Hurricanes, the Tigers, picking them apart in his head every time he has a spare moment, so he really doesn’t have time or energy for anything else.

Except, he guesses, seeing Bryce, because he is excited about that, or, maybe just relieved. Red Deer isn’t far or anything, but it was out of town enough to be, well, not Bryce adjacent, and while Bryce was in the crowd for their game five win, Jared barely got to see him before Bryce was heading out to Winnipeg. He’s thankful that at least they’re both free on his birthday, and he wants to make the most of it. The most of it would be actually getting to spend more than an evening with him, but that’s — that’s something that’d have to be parent approved, and Jared doesn’t have high hopes for that happening.

Still, he asks. There’s no harm in asking, and people are more likely to give in when you ask for it in the form of a present, especially if it doesn’t really cost them anything. Birthdays are handy leverage that way. He makes sure to find his mom alone, because if his dad’s there it’ll be dismissed out of hand. Thankfully his dad’s out on an early job when Jared corners his mom during breakfast two days before his birthday, giving her a wide smile while she pours coffee into a travel mug.

“Can I ask for just like, one thing for my birthday?” Jared asks.

His mom gives him a suspicious look, which is a bad start.

“Can I stay at Bryce’s that night?” Jared asks.

“By stay, do you mean stay over?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“No,” she says.

“Mom,” Jared protests. “I’ll be an adult.”

“Did you just _whine_ that you’ll be an adult?” she asks.

“I’m not whining,” Jared says, and — yeah, that actually sounds a lot like whining, shit. 

“You’re still in school,” his mom says. “I don’t care if you’re eighteen or not, you’re not staying out all night.”

“It’s the _weekend_ ,” Jared — he’ll admit it — whines. “I don’t have a game, I don’t have school, so why can’t I stay over there? And I’m not going to be out or anything, I’ll be at his place. It’s basically the same as every other time I go over to his place.”

“No,” she says. “It’s not.”

Jared crosses his arms. She’s acting like the second Jared stays out past curfew they’ll like, what? Have sex? They definitely don’t need the help, though obviously that’s not something he’s going to tell her. Honestly something she probably knows, considering the whole…introduction to Bryce.

“Please?” he asks. “That’s literally all I want. I don’t even know where I’m going to be next year, and I — I just wanna hang out with my boyfriend without worrying about curfew for _once_. It isn’t going to be any different — I won’t drink or anything, it’ll just be hanging out. But like, sleeping over.”

“I’ll talk about it with your father,” she says, which Jared figures is a hard no. There’s a reason he asked _her_. His dad can’t even hear Bryce’s name without getting this look on his face like he just smelled something bad. There’s no way he’s going to let Jared stay at Bryce’s overnight.

That night his dad enters his room without knocking, even though he _knows_ he’s not supposed to do that. Thankfully Jared’s just doing homework, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

“Happy birthday,” his dad says before Jared can remind him that doors are for _knocking_ , tossing a box in Jared’s lap.

Jared blinks down at it, and like, wishes he could pretend he doesn’t recognise it, but no one’s a good enough actor to pretend they don’t recognise a box of condoms.

“Dad!” he hisses.

“You can stay over,” he says. “Be safe.”

Jared honestly doesn’t know whether to thank him or strangle him, because he’s _definitely_ mortifying Jared on purpose. There is absolutely no way he doesn’t know Jared would be responsible. And. Is responsible. With the sex he’d like to pretend his parents don’t know he’s having. It’s harder to pretend they’re oblivious when you have a box of Trojans in your lap.

Well, not that they’ve actually had like, condom required sex yet. They’ve been like, kind of leading up to it, but Bryce is all insistent on it being ‘special’, and Jared still doesn’t trust him not to mean candles and rose petals by that. And honestly they should have been using them for blowjobs, but like — Bryce knows where Jared’s been, and the answer is ‘nowhere until Bryce came around’, so. Bryce has — not really talked about his non dude sex life, but apparently bloodwork’s a pretty typical part of his physicals, and he’s clean too.

So, Jared guesses, technically this condom gift is currently unnecessary. Plus he’s already got it covered. Both also things he is literally never saying aloud.

“You know,” Jared mumbles. “It kind of undermines the nice part of birthday presents if you accompany them with _embarrassment_ , dad.”

“You’re an adult now,” his dad says. “Adults aren’t embarrassed by this.”

“A, that is totally a lie, adults being embarrassed about sex is like, endemic,” Jared says. “And B, even if that wasn’t the case, I have a couple days left to be embarrassed by my dad _throwing condoms at me_.”

“Enjoy them,” his dad says cruelly.

*

The night before Jared’s birthday the Flames clinch a spot in the playoffs, so like, he wakes up pretty damn cheerful that morning. Presumably Bryce is also waking up pretty cheerful. Possibly hungover, though.

He doesn’t seem hungover, at least, when he picks Jared up for dinner — he insisted, like Jared’s not allowed to drive on his birthday. Insists on coming to the door and all too, sucking up to Jared’s mom while Jared puts his shoes on. It’s actually pretty cute.

His mom grabs him before he’s out the door, “I want a call from you at curfew.”

“But—” Jared says.

“You’re asking me to trust you not to take this latitude and use it to do something you’re not allowed to,” she says. “I know you’re legal to drink now, but I’m still not comfortable with you doing it with him. He clearly has issues with judgment at that point, and I don’t want you around him when your judgment is compromised too.”

“I told you,” Jared says. “We’re not going—”

“I want a call from you at curfew,” she repeats.

“Fine,” Jared says. “Okay.”

“What was that about?” Bryce asks, as they walk to his car. He’d been waiting all patiently on the porch during, but the second Jared’s mom is out of earshot the curiosity clearly overwhelms him.

“You’re not like, busy after our date tonight, are you?” Jared asks.

“Uh?” Bryce says. “No?”

“Cool,” Jared says. “Because my parents said I could stay over.”

Bryce doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, if you want,” Jared says. “If you don’t—”

“Obviously I want you to stay over,” Bryce says. “I’m just like, surprised they said you could.”

“I may have said that was the only birthday present I needed,” Jared says. Which didn’t stop them from getting him other ones, but.

Bryce straight up beams at him.

“I’ve wanted to sleep with you for, like, ever,” Bryce says.

“Pretty sure we’ve been doing that for awhile,” Jared says.

“You know what I mean,” Bryce says.

“Yeah,” Jared says. “Me too.”

Jared expects Bryce to drive them downtown — isn’t sure _where_ he expects Bryce to take him, just knows he’s nervous about it — but he doesn’t, drives them back towards where the camp was, turning into parking lot that has the movie theatre they went to that first time, the restaurant Bryce took him, which he parks outside of.

“I thought —” Bryce says, while they wait for the hostess. “I mean, we came here for our —” he looks around, and no one’s that close, but he still cautiously says, “We came here last July, and like, you liked it, right?”

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“And I figured we could go to a movie after, like, your pick, kind of all like —” Bryce says, then mumbles, “This was stupid. It sounded way more cool in my head.”

Bryce is like, basically recreating their First Official Date, and fuck, Jared loves him.

“No, that sounds really good,” Jared says. “This is perfect.”

“Yeah?” Bryce asks, looking hopeful, and Jared nudges his hand against his, pulling back when the hostess finally comes.

They eat steaks the size of Jared’s head, watch the latest Fast and the Furious movie, which is dumb fun. It’s way too packed in the theatre to do anything but sit beside one another, barely even brushing shoulders, but in the car on the drive back Bryce takes his hand off the wheel at a red light to take Jared’s, not letting go until the light turns green.

*

It’s not exactly early when they get back to Bryce’s — Jared would have only had a couple hours until curfew — but it feels like it, the entire night spread out ahead of them. Bryce goes into his room, returns with an envelope, which Jared guesses is his present. He wonders if there’s such thing as a card that costs fifty bucks or something. If there is, Bryce would have found it.

“This is super lame, but like, I wanted to get you stuff that you couldn’t have before you were eighteen?” Bryce asks. “But you can’t like, drink around me, I get that, and your parents probably wouldn’t be cool with me buying any even though you’re legal now, and like, obviously I’m not going to buy you like, cigarettes or something—”

“Which leaves, like, nothing,” Jared says. “Unless, like, sex toys?”

“Oh shit,” Bryce says, like he’s belatedly realising he missed something. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so it’s not sex toys, I guess,” Jared says.

“I got you lottery tickets?” Bryce says, holding the envelope out. “And I totally know you probably think they’re stupid—”

Jared guiltily closes his mouth.

“—but like, the scratch kind are fun. It’s like, bingo, and crosswords, I figured you would like crosswords, because like, you’re smart, and—”

“You’re kind of adorable,” Jared says. 

“You gave me a limited budget,” Bryce says, sounding embarrassed. “And I forgot you couldn’t like, buy sex toys if you weren’t eighteen. Did you want sex toys?”

“This is totally a different conversation,” Jared says. “Maybe like, for the bedroom.”

And not that condoms count as sex toys or anything — plus he was totally capable of picking them up at seventeen, and that was ignoring the ones he could have gotten from the school nurse if he wasn’t too embarrassed to do so — but like: no more sex related things for his birthday. His dad ruined it.

Jared is absolutely not telling Bryce his dad provided condoms. One mortified person is enough. Too many, in fact.

“Plus like, I don’t think we need help having great sex,” Jared says.

Bryce grins at him, before looking kind of thoughtful, “I heard vibrators are like, awesome though.”

“Where did you even—” Jared says, then, “Screw it, get a vibrator.”

“That’s over the fifty dollar budget you gave me,” Bryce says. “It’s all—”

He gestures at the envelope. With Jared’s luck, he’ll win absolutely nothing, and it’ll be a net fifty loss. But hey, bingo. It’ll be something to do to kill time on the bus.

“Yeah, but like, I think I can make an exception if it’s probably going to be a gift for you too,” Jared says.

“Wanna—?” Bryce says, then gets his laptop, and Jared spends half his time laughing at the shit you can buy — who names a lube ‘Fuck Water’, and who the hell is spending twenty-five hundred bucks on a sex machine? — and half like, pointing things that seem…promising out. 

They probably need more lube, and he didn’t know there was like, lube that was specifically anal lube, at least there wasn’t at Shoppers. Bryce buys the most like, expensive vibrator ever. Well. Two of the most expensive ones ever, because he couldn't decide. Also Bryce got kind of — squirmy at the handcuffs, so Jared overrode his incredibly weak protest and stuck a padded pair in the cart. He doesn’t know who Bryce wants to be wearing them, but he’s cool with either.

He can’t bear to look at the cost when Bryce checks out. He also — there’s a reason he said this conversation was better for the bedroom, and they take it there pretty fucking fast.

Jared’s honestly a little surprised Bryce’s insistence on like, Doing It Right doesn’t mean he wanted to wait until Jared’s birthday. He kind of figured that’s what Bryce was saying, maybe because Jared being eighteen made a difference to him, maybe because like, birthday sex is supposed to be special. He doesn’t know. He’s not complaining about a _boss_ birthday blowjob, he’s just taken aback. Maybe it’s for round two? Jared doesn’t have to go anywhere tonight.

“It’s the middle of playoffs,” Bryce says, all scandalized, when Jared mentions it. “What if I hurt you? What if I _injure you during the playoffs_?”

“Your dick isn’t _that_ big,” Jared says, and Bryce scowls at him. “Okay, sorry, yes, your dick is totally big enough to—”

“Stop,” Bryce whines. “I’m trying to be thoughtful and you’re making fun of my dick.”

“I’m not making fun of your dick,” Jared says. “I like your dick, I wouldn’t make fun of the lil guy.”

Bryce tries to smother him with a pillow, which is probably deserved, because Jared would do the exact same thing if Bryce called _his_ dick ‘lil guy’. It isn’t even true, but ‘slightly larger than the statistical average guy’ isn’t as fun to say.

“You can’t smother me on my birthday!” Jared says through the pillow anyway, and Bryce is a soft enough touch that he stops. 

“Say sorry,” Bryce says, frowning, when he takes the pillow off Jared’s face.

“Your dick is a perfectly normal size,” Jared says. “Even above average.”

“That’s not sorry,” Bryce says. “That’s just stating a fact.”

“I’m sorry for maligning your dick,” Jared says.

“I don’t know what maligning means,” Bryce says, still frowning, like Jared’s trying to trick him with a fake apology.

“I could do you,” Jared says.

“I—” Bryce says, then looks conflicted.

“But you have a game tomorrow afternoon,” Jared says quickly, because he’s not going to press if Bryce isn’t up for it yet. He’s been — he’s liked fingers, clearly more than he expected to, but there’s always a split second of hesitation there, like he’s saying ‘but that’s _gay_ ’ in his head, if not out loud, and Jared doesn’t quite — get it, but he also kind of does, so. If the waiting for something Special is just waiting for Bryce to be ready, Jared can do that. There really isn’t any rush. “And obviously my massive dick—”

Bryce tries to smother him again.

“Birthday!” Jared says.

“Maybe your massive dick will save you,” Bryce says, and Jared runs out of air faster than expected, because he bursts out laughing against the pillow.

Bryce is smiling when he takes the pillow away, not like, the grin — or one of the many grins, Jared’s maybe catalogued the grin sub-types — but something softer. 

“You’re all red,” he says, which is code for ‘you look like a blotchy fool’, but he says it like he likes it.

“From you _smothering me_ ,” Jared says, and Bryce’s smile widens to a grin, before he tries to smother Jared with, like, his mouth.

Damn, Matheson, you could not make kissing sound less sexy. Except he does, because suddenly he remembers someone fucking named lube ‘Fuck Water’, which honestly just sounds like the dumbest euphemism for like, come, and now he’s laughing against Bryce’s mouth, Bryce pulling back to frown at him until Jared says “Fuck Water, Bryce,” and then he’s laughing too.

“We’re never buying that brand,” Bryce says. “You’d just start giggling in the middle of sex every time.”

“ _Fuck Water_ ,” Jared says, and he’s got literal tears in his eyes. His stomach hurts by the time he stops laughing, Bryce grinning at him, Jared’s favourite of his grins, the one he’s only ever seen aimed at him.

Jared calls his mom right around curfew, trying to sound all sober and responsible, which he is, just as long as he doesn’t start thinking about lube or something, crawls back into bed with Bryce. It’s not like, late late, but Bryce has a matinee game, and Jared’s got a ton of homework to do tomorrow since he took the day off for his birthday, so, you know, it’s the responsible thing to do. And he _is_ responsible, except like, he doesn’t really want to sleep, is enjoying this lying together, close as they can get, nowhere to be.

They’ve napped before, but it was always with the knowledge that Jared had to get up, that it’d end soon. Obviously this will too, and he’s got to get up and leave in the morning, but. It’s different in the dark, Bryce’s breath slow and even against the shell of his ear.

“Happy birthday,” Bryce mumbles when Jared manages to scoot even closer, nothing between them, not even a breath of space.

“Yeah,” Jared says, because he couldn’t have had a better one.


End file.
